December 29, 2015

This is the second squad of 10 from the 40k 5th Edition "Battle for Black Reach" starter box.

L originally started them long ago and then they languished. I finally dug them out a few weeks before Christmas and put them on the painting table to get them finished. I didn't like that they were half-way (or less) done.

I've got little to no intention of playing 40k any time soon, but with these finally done, it doubles my number of painted Orks. I've still got the rest of the Black Reach box, plus another Ork army box somewhere. It's actually a small force, with only something like 40 boys, but at this pace it'll take 40 years to paint them all.

December 03, 2015

The new demo team or sidekicks program for the Batman Miniature Game by Knight Models has rolled into its second month. I was happy to get accepted and have been trying to get rolling on some of the activities they have set for us.

Each month we are going to receive a checklist of various things we can do. We haven't received the one for December yet, so we might be waiting until January for the next checklist.

In November I was able to run a demo for a new player and play a full 350 rep game with a friend, as well as build a TON more figures from my collection. I'm confident that I'll have a Poison Ivy crew with Catwoman tagging along ready for the table top shortly.

Our demo game featured Batman and Robin against Titan Bane and some Blackgate prisoners. The game played well and we got through a good number of the basics like movement, running, batclaw, attacking, blocking and shooting. When we were all finished we had a very good conversation about the models he liked and how he'd like to play.

I made a few recommendations and it sounds like there will be a League of Shadows crew of Lady Shiva, her female ninja, and Deathstroke joining the battle for Gotham's streets very soon. I'd like to take all the credit, but my demo recipient was already very excited about the game. It's really fun seeing that kind of enthusiasm, and I was happy to help.

The larger game we played was a lot of fun, despite the hugely lopsided victory point total at the end. I had a plethora of cops led by James Gordon and Batgirl up against Titan Bane, Solomon Grundy and an ax prisoner. We ended up with the "Plunder" scenario which was a huge disadvantage to the three-man crew. I messed up my deployment with my GCPD detective on the opposite side of the board from the riddles he should have been chasing, and wasted Gordon's ammo early...again he was on the wrong side of the board to go get more and be back in time to do anything useful.

The VP total ended up at something like 22 to 7, simply due to my ability to control objectives. As the game wore on however, I was starting to lose henchmen to the massive hitting power of Grundy and Bane. In the 6th round I was able to take down everyone but Bane. I would have easily needed three more rounds to take him out, and would likely have lost several more henchmen in the process.

I've been playing a lot of games with Law Forces (since I have all of them painted) and am looking forward to branching out from them with my Ivy crew. I've also got a few small demo crew ideas that I think will work well and aim to tackle with my paint brush over the Christmas holiday.

I'm looking forward to tackling more of the achievements set out for us in the coming months. If you're in the Calgary area and are interested in the Batman Miniature Game please get in touch with me!

December 02, 2015

I mentioned a bunch of items that I pushed across my hobby desk earlier this month, but here's a full recap of what I accomplished during the month of November.

- Re-based two Heroclix for repainting: purple jumpsuit Luthor and Black Mask
- Built Poison Ivy starter set for Batman Miniature Game; started painting (4)
- Built and based more serpent worshipper cultists (4)
- Built new cultist minis for a brand new group, likely for Kulten (11)
- Built safe box objectives for BMG (2)
- Built all my Joker minis for BMG (14)
- Built Arkham Inmates I booster for BMG (2)
- Cleaned and based my remaining Threshold agents for Strange Aeons (9)

In terms of painting I am nearly finished a 10-man Ork squad for Warhammer 40,000.

I also ordered and have received some stuff, but haven't had a chance to actually open the boxes for my Knights of Dice buildings & props or Ghostbusters Kickstarter pledge package. I've had word that my Pulp City items that were missing from their first campaign are on the way too, but they've not yet arrived.

Lots of stuff is still waiting for paint, but I hammered through a lot of model construction in November: 46 figures or objective markers! The Joker crew and Arkham figures will need a little green stuff work before I can prime them.

It looks like I'll have a week off near the end of the month and am hoping to get some solid time in at the painting table before the end of the year.